Would giving guns to everyone be the solution to gun violence? - (or at least keep innocents from getting slaughtered in massed huddles defenselessly)

[ZeCommissar]

So with the recent shooting in New Zealand, and the infamous mass shootings that have happened in the world these past few years it seems like many Western nations that have firearm access have a very polarized issue that is gun ownership. Some want to ban them all and force people to give their guns away, others will literally shoot you if you touch their gun. New Zealand seems to be taking the former path and heavily restricting firearms now.

Personally? I have a gun, and I do conceal carry it since you never know if you ever need it. Hell for all you know a rabid animal might attack you, nevermind a damn terrorist. If the government forced me to give it away I would since it's not worth dying or going to jail for, but I would honestly lose all faith in our government from there on out until the day I die. Oh and I would feel less safe.

One solution some people have put forward is to ARM EVERYONE THEY CAN! Give teachers guns, give women guns, hell give everyone that isn't a ex-felon or mentally insane a gun!

Is this a viable solution? Is it more preferable compared to the status quo that we have in the US or just banning them? What are the pros and cons that you guys can think of?

A problem I see is that some mass shooters could care less if they die, so someone that can fight back won't deter them. Although even if they still commit one their body count may be lower compared to if their victims didn't have a gun.
If at least half of the people in the first mosque had a gun when brenton rushed in the body count wouldn't have reached as high as it did.

Another problem is that if police respond to a gun violence call they would have to tell from armed suspects and armed civilians. The same goes for armed civilians as well. If you hear shooting around the corner how will you tell if the next guy you see with a gun isn't someone legally owning one?

Finally a situation like Las Vegas wouldn't really matter if the civilians had a gun with them or not. At that range with that many people running around you at best all you could do is return suppressive fire if all you had was a pistol (very ineffective suprresive fire I might add...), or get mistaken for the gunman and get tackled.....

There are a few more I can see, but they are either too minor to not be mentioned, and this post is already getting long enough.

What do you think? Should the government encourage more people to get a gun compared to the other way around?

 

[Frazzle]

I don't think it makes a difference in terms of death count. I think arming everyone will lead to a sharp increase in solitary firearm deaths and a decrease in mass shootings that would pretty much even out. People don't give a shit about it if it isn't a mass shooting though so in the news it would probably look like a success.

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

I think it would definitely cut back on the number of people killed when it comes to a school/church/government/whatever mass shooter.
But there are some people that are tards and should never have a gun.

Can you imagine if CWC had a gun?!

But either way, it would make a much funnier world.

 

[goku_black]

1. there are three main camps who have guns which is government, civilians and criminals. any form of gun control is removing rights of the civilian to access those firearms. criminals already don't care about abiding law so they are going to obtain the firearms anyway. so with gun control the camps that have guns turn into government and criminals.

2. even if a criminal couldn't get a firearm they can just use something else like a car or a truck. because it's not a gun problem, its a homicide problem.

3. if you do ban guns are you just going ban anything that amplify's the violence created by homicide and not look into the reasons why the perpetrator does the homicide.

4. for gun control you need a very responsive, efficient and well equipped(expensive) police (might as well call them military at this point) force to protect the populace, cough not New Zealand cough. It be cheaper with an armed populace.

5. with gun control the government no longer has a reason to fear the populace as long as they have the army backing them and can do whatever they think benefits them short term and long term.

just a mixture of reasons of why you want an armed populace, this is also why i think more people should buy firearms

 

[Chexxchunk]

There's a false dichotomy where people seem to think it's either "everyone should open carry a bazooka" or "ban all spoons."

As an unwritten social standard, I think people in general should be tastefully self-defensive and assume everyone else is doing the same--hypothetically, if there was some non-lethal ranged weapon that had rough parity with a gun in close quarters, then I think everyone should carry that discreetly. In the absence of such a device, maybe everyone should have a single-shot low caliber pistol in their codpiece, or other near-to-hand place. In that kind of environment, the state of nature would be reestablished where a bunch of people could "tackle" another guy with their tiny guns while not causing anxiety through a sense of excessive force imbalance among their peers.

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

Countries the world over refuse to go to war with each other because of the threat of getting nuked. It's entirely possible to have a break down in society where everyone wielding a gun just start opening fire on each other, the L.A. Riots for example, but when you remove weapons from the self defense ecosystem, you get the opposite problem by giving everyone hiding those weapons a leg-up in force multiplication.

hypothetically, if there was some non-lethal ranged weapon that had rough parity with a gun in close quarters, then I think everyone should carry that discreetly.

We have that, they're called bean bag rounds. You load them in your shotgun and they fire hacky sacks at you. Now they can still kill you, but they're not meant to.

 

[Phantom]

Can you imagine if CWC had a gun?!

 

[VaporwareFaggot]

I think it would be a good deterrence for people whod wanna shoot a place up. I mean. Not many psychos go into a space known to be very armed and start going to town.

Also. Obligatory. "An armed society is a polite society"

People may be nicer knowing that they may be packing heat.

 

[ColtWalker1847]

Would giving guns to everyone be the solution to gun violence?

Yes. Well it depends.

 

[QI 541]

It would reduce the casualties from mass shootings, but probably increase the casualties from "normal" violence and greatly increase the casualties from people being stupid.

 

[Cake Farts]

I agree whole heatedly with my goVT decision go nz. If you guys had any balls you wouldn't need a gun.

Real men fight with spoons.
Also what the fuck is the gibberish after that line? It’s like trying to read Sammy Bushart’s posts.

On the topic, I find that usually extreme proposals hardly ever work, so a middle ground would be a lot more flexible in different situations. As in, concealed carry should totally be legal so long as it’s a rather small single gun and not enough to actually kill (all guns have the capacity to kill, but the weapon shouldn’t be high powered).
Somewhat off topic, I think open carry of long bladed weapons is ridiculous.

 

[Sexy Senior Citizen]

As an unwritten social standard, I think people in general should be tastefully self-defensive and assume everyone else is doing the same--hypothetically, if there was some non-lethal ranged weapon that had rough parity with a gun in close quarters, then I think everyone should carry that discreetly.

We call them Tasers. They can kill you, but more often than not, they don't.

On the topic, I find that usually extreme proposals hardly ever work, so a middle ground would be a lot more flexible in different situations. As in, concealed carry should totally be legal so long as it’s a rather small single gun and not enough to actually kill (all guns have the capacity to kill, but the weapon shouldn’t be high powered).
Somewhat off topic, I think open carry of long bladed weapons is ridiculous.

So, something like a derringer? It's pretty small, but if you miss the first shot, you're fucked. What about a Glock?
What if you're hiking (not hunting) in the woods, and an angry bear decides to pick a fight? You'd need a handgun on par with the S&W .500.

In case you couldn't tell, my view on the topic is squarely in the pro-gun camp, for two reasons.

1. Criminal deterrent. Yes, mass shooters don't give a shit whether they live or die, but they're thankfully rare. Someone breaking into my house? Much more likely. I'd like to be able to do more than hide under the bed. As noted above, the only way to enforce a nobody-gets-hurt-by-the-nasty-criminals policy is to have a militarized police force, in which case you might as well have martial law. Which segues nicely into my second view:
2. Government deterrent. Now, I'm not advocating a La Zorra style compound full of wide-eyed retards just waiting for Uncle Sam to overreach. But when I look in New Zealand and note the government actively hunting individuals who saw an inconvenient video, I'm a little nervous about what Uncle Sam might decide to do to me. On my own, I'm not much, but as a member of a 100 million+ group, Uncle Sam is a little more tempted to follow the Bill of Rights.

 

[Medicated]

So with the recent shooting in New Zealand, and the infamous mass shootings that have happened in the world these past few years it seems like many Western nations that have firearm access have a very polarized issue that is gun ownership. Some want to ban them all and force people to give their guns away, others will literally shoot you if you touch their gun. New Zealand seems to be taking the former path and heavily restricting firearms now.

Personally? I have a gun, and I do conceal carry it since you never know if you ever need it. Hell for all you know a rabid animal might attack you, nevermind a damn terrorist. If the government forced me to give it away I would since it's not worth dying or going to jail for, but I would honestly lose all faith in our government from there on out until the day I die. Oh and I would feel less safe.

One solution some people have put forward is to ARM EVERYONE THEY CAN! Give teachers guns, give women guns, hell give everyone that isn't a ex-felon or mentally insane a gun!

Is this a viable solution? Is it more preferable compared to the status quo that we have in the US or just banning them? What are the pros and cons that you guys can think of?

A problem I see is that some mass shooters could care less if they die, so someone that can fight back won't deter them. Although even if they still commit one their body count may be lower compared to if their victims didn't have a gun.
If at least half of the people in the first mosque had a gun when brenton rushed in the body count wouldn't have reached as high as it did.

Another problem is that if police respond to a gun violence call they would have to tell from armed suspects and armed civilians. The same goes for armed civilians as well. If you hear shooting around the corner how will you tell if the next guy you see with a gun isn't someone legally owning one?

Finally a situation like Las Vegas wouldn't really matter if the civilians had a gun with them or not. At that range with that many people running around you at best all you could do is return suppressive fire if all you had was a pistol (very ineffective suprresive fire I might add...), or get mistaken for the gunman and get tackled.....

There are a few more I can see, but they are either too minor to not be mentioned, and this post is already getting long enough.

What do you think? Should the government encourage more people to get a gun compared to the other way around?

I think it has to do with more than just giving guns. For example, mass shootings in the US were rare in the past because of the culture of firearms. Every family needed them for protection of their land and pest control. So everyone learnt it was a valuable tool that wasn't to be messed around with. People got taught at a young age, how to shoot, and not to point it at anything you didn't want dead.

Just handing out guns is like handing out bowie knives to mentally disabled people, they are just gonna think its a fun toy and fuck around. You'd have to start working on society itself, and as we all know, no one has any interest in fixing anything that might influence society, schools, family, industry etc...

 

[Hell]

Mass shootings don't exclusively happen in the US or even New Zealand. People can still buy stuff from the deep web, or even run over people driving a car or something. Even a Katana or a crossbow can stir some shit up. Banning guns sure will lower the casualties, but even if you ban them you'll still find people willing to Allahu Snackbar themselves by different means, not mentioning the fact that sometimes spergy lonely shooters may look for a situation of "suicide by cop" on purpose. Sometimes you just have enough Bitcoins to dodge the fact that you don't have a license, but even without Bitcoins, you can still ask a relative or friend for a gun if he has one, or even steal a revolver from daddy's room. Sure guns are potentially dangerous, but don't forget an attacker may combine multiple tools during the attack. A good example is Elliot Rodger: the supreme gentleman used both his BMW and two knives as well. Even without his SIG Sauers P226 he had still done it, and we all know it. Guns just make it easier, but that's all.

Sometimes even Europe has shooters. It's not really that "safe" at all.

Perhaps I'm not a hysterical gun-grabber, but how about weapons that aren't guns? Even a hammer used with enough strength, or acid right to the face of the victim, can be harmful or even lethal too. Should we ban hammers and knives too? I don't know. I'm pretty open-minded about guns, sex or even drugs like a real ANCAP even if I don't purely consider myself one, but the problem is that people often forget other dangerous tools when debating these issues. I have the idea that perhaps all kids should get shooting lessons from an early age and that patrolling schools with real well-trained soldiers isn't really a bad idea. As 1984-esque as it sounds, heavy video-surveillance could basically eradicate bullying within schools. We should also basically ban Islam and take the feelings of virgin incels seriously so they don't snap. It's not really about guns, I know the thread is about guns exclusively, but this is basically a multifactorial problem caused by many different triggers different in nature. It's not that simple.

I've been lurking the forums for a long time, but I rarely posted because I distrust people a bit. Homo homini lupus and all that jazz.

Can you imagine if CWC had a gun?!

Don't call anyone.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

Uh... no. As long as there is violence and guns there will be gun violence. It would certainly change the distribution of gun deaths though.

 

[Agent Scud]

I think it has to do with more than just giving guns. For example, mass shootings in the US were rare in the past because of the culture of firearms. Every family needed them for protection of their land and pest control. So everyone learnt it was a valuable tool that wasn't to be messed around with. People got taught at a young age, how to shoot, and not to point it at anything you didn't want dead.

Just handing out guns is like handing out bowie knives to mentally disabled people, they are just gonna think its a fun toy and fuck around. You'd have to start working on society itself, and as we all know, no one has any interest in fixing anything that might influence society, schools, family, industry etc...

I think it would be better to educate people on firearms and what to do in the case of an active shooter situation. Granted not everyone's going to have the balls when push comes to shove and someone is stalking hallways, and I wouldn't blame them, but the more people prepared the better.

 

[An Account]

I love when people say "oh I wouldn't want that person to have a gun" but they don't bat an eye at said person driving around a two-ton mobile battering ram.

 

[дядя Боря]

OP, you screwed up on the word ... "giving"

giving people guns is like giving people freedom. If they are slaves in their hearts, no amount of guns or freedom would help them. It's like you can't make someone love you, if it's not in their heart, you can't force it.

Police is a relatively modern invention. For the most of the human history, free men had unrestricted access to arms ... guns/swords/knives/explosives/warships/warplanes/mercenaries. Slaves had their access to arms restricted. This is all about control, control of one entity (goverment) over another, its subjects. You have no freedom, only freedom to vote for either a douchebag or a shit sandwich.

The OP's what-if scenario was in fact majority of human history. It's a history of violence, fragile security and lessons that those who trade liberty for temporary security deserve neither.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

OP, you screwed up on the word ... "giving"

giving people guns is like giving people freedom. If they are slaves in their hearts, no amount of guns or freedom would help them. It's like you can't make someone love you, if it's not in their heart, you can't force it.

Police is a relatively modern invention. For the most of the human history, free men had unrestricted access to arms ... guns/swords/knives/explosives/warships/warplanes/mercenaries. Slaves had their access to arms restricted. This is all about control, control of one entity (goverment) over another, its subjects. You have no freedom, only freedom to vote for either a douchebag or a shit sandwich.

The OP's what-if scenario was in fact majority of human history. It's a history of violence, fragile security and lessons that those who trade liberty for temporary security deserve neither.

Hmmm....

Is this dude just someone who happened to join recently, has a cyrillic name, and says a lot of weird stuff about guns and the NZ shooting, a troll, a for real actual russian government troll, a chinese troll (That'd be a surprise!), a for real actual neo-nazi, a regular old weird german, or none of the above?

 

[дядя Боря]

Hmmm....

Is this dude just someone who happened to join recently, has a cyrillic name, and says a lot of weird stuff about guns and the NZ shooting, a troll, a for real actual russian government troll, a chinese troll (That'd be a surprise!), a for real actual neo-nazi, a regular old weird german, or none of the above?

I loled, why not start another thread to ponder those deep questions?